I’m going to take just a moment of your time to share Dr. Dorothy Shepherd’s thoughts, word for word from her book, Magic of the Minimum Dose (first published in 1938). She makes an important point about minuteness. Very good food for thought for the skeptics amongst us.
“He found in fact that the lesser became the greater. A vital and most important truth.… ‘Can this be possible?’ you say. To the man steeped in materialism, this seems foolish to say the least; the lesser cannot be the greater. And yet this same man, this same doctor who laughs at the possibility of being able to cure with doses one millionth of a grain, or even a smaller quantity, this doctor shakes in his shoes at the thought of smallpox and passes on his fears to all the rest of credulous mankind. At the mere breath of the word smallpox, all rush off to be vaccinated as a preventative, even though smallpox may be miles away at the other end of the county. And the causative agent of small pox is a virus, an agent so small that even the strongest lenses of the most powerful microscope cannot make it visible*; it is an invisible ultramicroscopic organic cell. Do you understand what that means? A bacillus which shows up moderately plainly in a microscope, is so small that it would take 400 millions of bacilli, lying side by side, to cover an ordinary postage stamp. And a virus is infinitely smaller than one bacillus. The doctors are afraid of smallpox and so is every sensible person, and with reason; for a severe case of smallpox is a truly awful spectacle and extremely fatal as well. And is not everybody scared of diphtheria, of the minute bacillus causing this disease, so deadly to so many children, which is prevalent everywhere; all the health officials rush about and are so busy getting everybody protected against it, they do not laugh or sneer at the minuteness of this organism; they have felt the power of these minute germs. Yes, they are all disease-minded, they fear diseases and their causes, the minutest cells. But they do not follow up this argument to its logical conclusion; if the infinitesimal organism has so much power for evil, why cannot an infinitesimal quantity of a drug have as much power for good? [emphasis added]
… there are viruses causing disease in animals and others causing diseases in plants. We do not know how they act, but we are content to accept the fact that they do act and cause serious harm. And these same people who acknowledge the power inherent in these minutest of living forms, the viruses, will not recognize the radio-active power, the dynamic forces residing in and brought about by the special method of preparation of the potentised drugs [homeopathy]."
Magic of the Minimum Dose is a highly readable book retelling her experiences of treating patients during the war in England.
Shephard, Dr. D., 1989. The magic of the minimum dose : experiences and cases. Saffron Walden: Health Science Press.
Widely available in printed form as well as e-book or PDF downloads
* this book was originally published in 1938
Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath
#wellnessawaits
classicallypractical.com